CDOs

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has priced a $526.8 million CLO to be managed by GoldenTree Asset Management, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.

Global structured finance issuance's modest pace in 1Q12 is credit positive for new-issuance in these products that include ABS, RMBS, CMBS and CLOs, according to an emailed note from Standard & Poor's this morning.

Barclays said today it named John Langley and Joe McGrath co-heads of the global finance and risk solutions business within the firm’s investment banking division.

The latest wave of proposed European regulations on rating agencies, known as CRA3, contains a rule that has unsettled players from every corner of the financial market: enforced ratings rotation.

A federal magistrate has ordered Space Coast Credit Union to a non-binding mediation session with lawyers from five Wall Street banks and two rating agencies regarding the credit union’s $100-million claim related to a failed investment the banks sold Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union, a failed Miami credit union acquired by Space Coast in 2009.

Nomura added a leveraged finance banker to its investment banking group in the Americas, the firm said.

Last month a lawsuit brought by holders of TruPS resulted in a ruling that stopped the sale of BankAtlantic to BB&T Corp. under the original terms. Following the ruling, BB&T amended the terms and proposed to assume the TruPS obligations.

The Carlyle Group closed a $510 million CLO, its second in a year, the private equity firm said in statement.

Standard & Poor's most recent European CLO Performance Index Report showed several changes in performance metrics in December 2011.

Bankrupt bond insurer Ambac Financial Group had a net loss of $963 million in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The current buoyancy underlying the U.S. CLO market can be attributed to a number of issuance friendly factors, not the least of which is significant interest from new buyers, market participants say.

In competitive sports, being first is always the goal. But the distance between the U.S. — at the head of the pack — and the rest of the world in crafting financial reforms is becoming a major hurdle for implementing the Dodd-Frank Act.

A federal judge declined yesterday to dismiss charges that Barclays Capital packed a CDO it sold to Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union with junk, hastening the demise of the one-time $2.4 billion credit union, the biggest natural person credit union failure ever.

Citigroup has sold a $360.8 million CLO for Babson Capital Management, according to people with knowledge of the deal.

According to Leveraged Commentary & Data (LCD), a unit of Standard & Poor's, leveraged loan issuance is down by half versus last year, which S&P analysts said is potential constraint for CLO issuance.

In one of the most ambitious suits of its kind so far, Space Coast Credit Union has filed suit against several investment banks and rating agencies for the sale of $150 million of CDOs to Eastern Financial Florida Credit Union, the huge Florida credit union that failed in 2009 then was acquired by Space Coast.

Ongoing pressure on the credit ratings of some of the largest financial institutions could result in a minor shakeup in the ranks of CLO trustees.

The Carlyle Group is planning a $494.2 million CLO. The deal, dubbed Carlyle Global Market Strategies CLO 2012-1, would be the private equity firm’s thirty-third, and its first new issue for 2012. It is an arbitrage cash flow CLO with a four-year reinvestment period, scheduled to end in April 2016, according to a presale report by Fitch Ratings.

More details are highlighted on bond insurer MBIA's reported losses in the fourth quarter of 2011 from yesterday's article from ASR sister publication The Bond Buyer.